Hebrews 12:1-2
1 Therefore, since we are
surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight
and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race
that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our
faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne
of God.
On many Sunday mornings, as he stood
behind this pulpit to lead us in the worship and praise of God, Roy would by
saying four simple words: “It’s all about Him.” It didn’t matter what songs we
sang, how many we sang, or how well we sang them. What mattered was to Whom we
were singing them—Almighty God.
I quickly came to appreciate that
sentiment, that when we come to gather in this place on Sunday morning it is
indeed all about Him, all about God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It’s
about God and how He has met us in this place as we gather to worship. It’s
about Christ and how He meets us each and every week in this place to speak a
word of faith, hope, and love to each one of us. It’s all about the Holy Spirit
and how It knows the deepest places of our hearts and longs to make us whole
and one with God and each other. When we gather in this place on Sunday
mornings for worship it is indeed all about God and the manifold ways God loves
us.
Yet I know today, as we have
gathered in this room, we have gathered with heavy hearts. We have come
together for worship, yet there is a very big part of us that is absent from
this place this morning. After 30 years (as long as many of us can remember),
it seems surreal to think that we won’t gather for worship to be led by one
we’ve grown to love, one we’ve grown to expect to be here even when we are not.
It feels as if we may have entered the wilderness of worship without our Moses
to show us the way. Yet like so many great people of faith in the history of
Christ’s Church, Roy would say the same thing he has said to us on so many
mornings like this one: “it’s not about Roy; it’s not about us; it’s all about
Him.”
While we wait for that coming day
when we shall no longer see as in a “mirror, dimly, but [when] we shall see
face to face…[when we] will know fully, even as [we] have been fully known,”[1]
I take comfort in these words from the author of the book of Hebrews: “Therefore,
since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…” In the
chapel at Beeson Divinity School, encircling the interior of the dome, is a
depiction of that great cloud of witnesses. Among the saints of Holy Scripture
and the angels of heaven are some of the heroes and heroines of Church history:
Martin Luther, St. Augustine, Jonathan Edwards, Lottie Moon, and others. I
often think about that scene in that dome of Hodges Chapel and those words from
Hebrews whenever we lose another saint, but I don’t picture those we’ve lost as
spiraling up towards some great light, gone from our presence until we join
them again on the other side of eternity. No, when I read those words from
Hebrews, I believe that we are in fact “surrounded
by so great a cloud of witnesses,” that here, among us now, with the Holy
Spirit of God, we are surrounded by the saints who have gone before us. And
what a cloud of witnesses it is!
It is with that sense of communion,
that sense that we are indeed surrounded by the saints, that the passage before
us continues, “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also
lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with
perseverance the race that is set before us…” In seasons like these
time seems to stand still; the hands of the clock move at a glacial pace. In
seasons like these we will grieve; we will mourn as our lives seek to find a
new sense of normal, as we seek to discover what it means to live on this side
of glory without one who’s gone with us for so long. Yet in these words from
Hebrews (words that echo with “it’s all about Him”) we are encouraged by the
presence of that great cloud of witnesses. We are encouraged that Roy’s life
and the lives of those saints before us were not lived in vain. We are
encouraged to shake off those things that keep us from God, that keep us from
what God would have us to do.
We are encouraged as we reflect on
the life of our friend and those friends who have gone before us, and we are
encouraged as we continue, just as they did, “looking to Jesus the pioneer and
perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him
endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right
hand of the throne of God.” We are encouraged because “it’s all about
Him.” It’s all about Jesus.
That’s not my sermon to you this
morning. No, that has been Roy’s sermon to you for the past 30 years. It’s all
about Jesus. There is no one else deserving of our praise, our adoration, our
honor, our lives, than Jesus. And I know this morning, as we have gathered in
this room once again to worship and praise our God, the eternal worship and
praise of God in glory is a bit louder with a bit more bass. As we have
gathered in this room for worship this morning, we are surrounded by so great a
cloud of witnesses, and I know who we can count among them, and I know that in
that cloud of the saints, there is one this morning who would tell you the same
thing he’s told you for years: “It’s all about Him; it’s all about Jesus.” May
our lives ever reflect that glorious truth Roy has shared with us for so long.
Amen.
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